The Tim Ferriss Effect: Lessons From My Successful Book Launch

To get some more perspective on the power of single-author blogs, I asked some other authors of well-known, influential single-author blogs to chime in. Here’s what New York Times bestselling author Ramit Sethi had to say:

“In the past, it was a clear path. If you wanted exposure for something, you went to the mass media. Over time, the ‘TV industrial complex’ grew more and more complicated, more and more fragmented, and there were tons and tons of channels. Now there are channels upon channels.

“So, in a world of infinite choices, if something is not directly personalized to us, we close the window and we’re on to something else. For example with Tim’s site, you have a highly passionate audience of people of a very similar demographic who have really similar goals. If anybody wants to post anything about lifestyle design and get attention, it’s more effective to be on Tim’s blog than to be on the Today Show.”

Ramit used this concept when launching his own book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, which became a bestseller. “There was basically a book review put up on virtually every major personal finance blog. We could track and see exactly which blogs were sending the most traffic and the most sales, and it was actually quite surprising. Some of the largest blogs did not send some of the most sales. So the beautiful thing is that you can now track what’s effective and what’s not. On a recent launch, we actually prioritized one single-author blog higher than a huge newspaper and a huge TV show with millions of viewers that everyone in the country has heard of.

“You want to find an audience that is highly targeted. I would rather be able to reach 5,000 people who are exactly interested in my topic than let’s say 100,000 who are only marginally interested.

“I was on a national morning TV show and I had a pretty prominent segment where I held up my book and I discussed everything. It was very positive. However, if I had shown you the traffic numbers from that week, you would not have been able to guess which day I was on the morning show. Seriously.

“The Holy Grail is a single-author blog with a large audience that is highly focused, and the author loves your stuff. If you can make friends with them and show them that your stuff is great and relevant to their audience, that can really propel you from one level to the next.”

I asked Ramit the Million Dollar Question: let’s say you’ve identified this Holy Grail blogger. How do you get on his or her radar?

“Here’s the worst way. The worst way is to send one email with a ton of content saying, ‘Hey, I would love for you to review my product. I think it’s great. I think your readers would really love it’ and then it’s just a bunch of gibberish markety stuff.

“Guess what? Any big blogger gets at least 50 of those a week. I wish we could answer all of them, but they just get deleted. The more effective way is to take a long-term approach. The real misfortune is that nobody else does it. So people will nod and say, ‘Yeah, I should really do that,’ and then they don’t.

“You want to focus on the idea, ‘I’m going to add value to this person over time.’ The first thing you could do is leave some thoughtful comments on their blog. Next, you could send them some email saying, ‘Hey, that was really great, but I thought you may have missed this one point. Here’s an interesting article with a different perspective on it.’ If you thought it through and did some research, the author will think, ‘Wow, thanks very much!’ and you are not asking for anything.

“All of a sudden now you’ve differentiated yourself first by adding value. You are not going directly for the kill. Eventually, you could reach out and say, ‘Hey, these are a couple of things I noticed you’re doing that I think that I could help with. I’d love to connect you to this person, etc.’ Then eventually, you can ask, ‘If it’s okay, I just want to ask you for about 60 seconds,’ and ask them about your thing and say, ‘Do you have any advice?’ and ‘Do you think maybe this might be interesting to your audience?’

“No pressure. One mistake people make is they often have a ‘one shot and done’ attitude about this: ‘If I don’t get my pitch in, and they don’t like it, it’s over.’ Wrong. It’s really about building a relationship over the long-term. Sounds like a lot of work? Good! Because 99% of people will not do that. That’s why they will send one email, it will be rejected and they’ll complain that, ‘Oh this blogger’s not nice,’ or ‘Oh, it’s too hard to get media. If only I had connections.’ The point is to reach those people, it’s not about luck or magic, it’s about being really thoughtful and systematic about how you can help them first.”

Ramit has not only been on the receiving end of the power of single-author blogs promoting his stuff—he also now bestows these effects on others. He recently published a piece about microloan charity Kiva. A representative from Kiva later wrote that Ramit’s post “led to our biggest loan volume day ever. . . . I realized, this is just ridiculous. The biggest loan volume day ever, and Kiva.org has been mentioned in various international news sources (BBC, CNN, Wall Street Journal).”

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In a word, wow. This post really resonates with me, as I have gone the traditional PR route for my fourth book. Yes, I’ve done posts on HuffPo, been written up in Forbes, and have some other high-profile stuff in the hopper. Yet, none of these channels has moved books.

Michael: Great article and some excellent tips. I like your point about how touching a large but relatively smaller group of passionate people is better than reaching a larger group of dispassionate ones. However, I don’t think that is the ONLY (or perhaps even the MAIN reason) why you had much greater success with the exposure given to you by Tim vs that offered by the mass media.

There is also an ‘immediacy’ and ‘convenience’ effect that is so powerful with web exposure. Think about it. It is so much easier for someone to go to Amazon to purchase your book when they read about it in a blog or forum (after all, it is just a click away) than it is when they are exposed to it via a TV or magazine. As a professional marketer, I learned a long time ago that the key to success is to make it fast and easy for someone to buy your product once they become aware of it. Food for thought!

“If you take a print magazine with a million person circulation, and a blog with a devout readership of 1 million, for the purpose of selling anything that can be sold online, the blog is infinitely more powerful, because it’s only a click away. The transition from interest to purchase is one click, whereas if someone sees something on Good Morning America, as wide as its reach may be, they need to write that down, and/or capture it in a device and then go online, search for it and purchase it.”

This is the most interesting book marketing piece I’ve ever seen. Having read Tim Ferris’s books and being astounded at the passion of his audience, I am convinced that you are right. Ferris’s thinking and writing is counter-culture, somewhat “radical” in concept and very enticing in its message. You inspire. Think I’ll write a book and see if your suggestions work!

I was about to start wondering why you don’t mention what seems to be the obvious, but then Tim Ferriss mentions it: the fact that a (passionate) blog reader is just a click away from the product while the TV viewers will have forgotten about your product by the time the show they are watching is over.

Tim is an inspiration, to many, and in my opinion the greatest currently living (self) marketing mastermind.

On a side not: for all 4 Hour Workweek fans, visit http://4hwwsuccess.com for inspiring 4 Hour Workweek Success Stories.

Great article. I don’t have the book yet but I’ve caught some of your content have enjoyed and connected/related with it a lot. This article really highlights how the internet has changed everything forever. i.e. Everyone has the opportunity to put up a blog and build a community of loyal followers that was only previously possible with amazing amounts of traditional media exposure. That’s not to say its easy but the opportunity is there for everyone with a computer and an internet connection. Getting past the gatekeepers of TV is no longer necessary.

I’ve read these recommendations before and heard them from a number of places, but this is the most concrete demonstration of it. Thanks for your specific, personal details, Michael – that made all the difference between me reading this again, and finally getting it.

This is exactly what SOPA is for. To get people back to the mainstream network giants that send the same content out to everyone regardless of interests. Blogs and Google work too well in terms of promotion. Mickey Mouse doesn’t get paid this way. And Micky Mouse is very angry when he doesn’t get paid.

This is all nice and good but let’s face it, the very title of your post “The Tim Ferriss Effect” indicates that is was the direct intervention of someone with star power to tapping into their followers that lead to you’re books success. How many others out there have access to Tim Ferriss? Not much I’d imagine and like you yourself pointed out, unless you were his friend, the majority of unknowns out there would probably be rejected. This “advice” is a fluff piece for the rich and well connected and does nothing to truly advise the common man and first time authors.

Loved, loved, loved! this article! It was forwarded to me by a friend whom, as we both are, are trying to market our businesses and books and everything you write about in this article is 100% true and accurate.

One a side funny note, I completely agree about the Amazon ranking. I do the daily check on the rank for my book as well. One friend asked me what do I consider to be a good ranking…my answer … if it was better than yesterday!

With that said, building relationships within in your industry is key and your article points that out very well. I have been on NBC, ABC, Bloomberg, MSN Money and while I have received excellent traffic from all of those sources, none have outdone a couple of blogs related to my business. While I can’t say I have sold millions of books or millions of products my business sells, I have done well, when those bloggers, that have a passionate following, take the time to talk about me, who I am and what I sell, and do so on a personal level.

This is such a great article. I am a good example of how well this works. About a year before my book came out, I met bestselling author, J.A. Jance. I sent her a quick email afterward to thank her, and tell her I’d taken her advice. Then when I got a book deal, I wrote again to tell her that her advice had lead to a book contract and she reciprocated with more good advice. For me, it was all about thankfulness.

Through email we wrote back and forth and she gave me advice along the road to publication. I am a debut author and had no idea what I was doing. My memoir came out on 11/1/11 and she read it! Well, she sent an email to her entire email list about my book, something she’d never done before. She believed in, Breaking the Code, and became a champion for it. My sales numbers went up and continue to go up. I recently learned that she uses me as an example in her author presentations, which explains my constant surges in sales. She tells people to buy my book. My Amazon ranking went up and we are often paired together as items bought together. This has nothing to do with how much money you have or whether you have the right connections. It’s about being grateful and recognizing when someone has done something positive for you (advice, in this case). And by the way, a blurb written by J.A. will appear on the back of the 2nd edition of my book!

Additionally, I began cultivating online relationships when I first started writing my memoir almost 10 years ago. Those connections continue to spread the word about my book, in more ways than I can count.

I love this article. It put words and an explanation to what I “just happened” to experience along the way. Thank you for writing it! I guess as it turns out, what just felt right/good to do as a human being, ended up being the right thing to do for book marketing. Couldn’t get better than that! ~Karen Fisher-Alaniz

This is an eye-opening and inspiring message! Thank you, Mr. Ellsberg! I’m an indie writer about to release my debut novel and one of my biggest hurdles is trying to figure out how to market my work to the right audience. You’ve given me A LOT to think about, and you’ve just gained a fan. I look forward to reading many more of your insightful posts!

This is SO helpful. My book on chills and thrills in tribal Thailand will be out this fall, and I’d like to have it mentioned by Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer. I”ve seen both of them in Thailand and I know they believe God is alive and interfacing with people. I haven’t known how to go about establishing contact. Now I know how to begin a relationship with them. Thanks, Michael Ellsberg. You’re awesome!

Underlying this article is a tacit assumption; that it is largely the author who has the onus of ensuring the success of his book. Book Publishers are no longer adding much value either from their physical distribution, or from the imputed reputation of their brand and imprint. So once their marketing efforts (like book tours and television appearances) start to wane against the built-in audiences of the authors–well then that is the beginning of the end for the book publishing industry (and self publishing will dominate). As goes the book business, so will the article/magazine industry — we have entered the era of author driven distribution (which is at the heart of what Forbes is calling entrepreneurial journalism.)

Brilliant article on the Tim Ferriss Effect Michael. As a speaker, author and consultant teaching women the power of digital marketing and digital self publishing, I found this article to be right on the money.

Outside of Amazon’s Lending Library [where I had 12,000 downloads in 3 days] the biggest mover of my book Your Millionaire Attitude was blog interviews and personal reviews from women with my direct target market that I had a personal relationship with.

Being mentored by Brendon Burchard I have used many of his marketing strategies also. When it comes to book marketing I would have to say Tim Ferriss and Brendon Burchard are second to none. Thank you for sharing this insightful blogpost. Cheers Pam Brossman, CEO SheExperts.com